Dood, I found a bug

Rating: 6/10 (24 July 2005)

Greetings again from the darkness. The comparisons to "Logan's Run" are inevitable and there are many familiarities with "Minority Report", "Coma", "Total Recall" and even the remake of "Invasions of the Body Snatchers". Of course, these are expected when one combines sci-fi with a future world and cloning! Director Michael Bay must have been quite the terror as a boy growing up. I envision young Mikey trying to blow things up and perform stunts on his bike after attaching the motor from the lawn mower. Now that he is big and rich, he gets to do it for real in EVERY one of his movies ("Bad Boys", "The Rock" "Armageddon" "Pearl Harbor"). I will say he is very consistent.
"The Island" is a bit of stretch for Bay and I don't believe he quite pulls it off. Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson couldn't possibly be any more photogenic and gosh, they sure can RUN. Haven't seen this much running in a movie since the Steve Prefontaine story. The supporting cast is stellar with Sean Bean pulling off one his patented bad guy smoothies, Djimon Hounsou ("In America" "Gladiator") is underutilized as a renegade bounty hunter, Michael Clarke Duncan ("The Green Mile") has one terrific scene and the great Steve Buscemi is a wonderfully quirky addition. Despite all the star power and fire power, the film leaves us feeling a bit flat.
The best scenes are with McGregor when his clone and owner together - whether in an ultra cool house or a very fast caddy. The worst scenes are the car/copter/motorcycle chases which look just like the Bad Boys stuff.
"The Island" is eye candy for those who aren't really concerned about the details in a story - quite a few of which are left hanging here.